This invention relates to packaging of a mobile vehicle radiator and charge air cooling (CAC) for a mobile vehicle chassis. The packaging reduces the amount of frontal or horizontal area required on the front of a vehicle through a novel arrangement of overlapping the radiator and the CAC to allow both heat exchangers to be exposed directly to incoming outside air in areas of highest heat exchange. An existing heat exchanger may be turned 90 degrees and then installed in front or behind the other heat exchanger to form a cross formation such that the inlet and outlet regions of both heat exchangers are exposed directly to outside fresh air with the center of the rearward heat exchanger receiving second hand outside air in the center region.
In the prior art, radiators and charge air coolers for mobile vehicles were mounted together in the path of airflow in various configurations. Turbo-charged engines for highway trucks have had cooling of the intake air charge for many years. This usually was accomplished by an intercooler, an intake air-to-engine coolant heat exchanger mounted on the engine, and was quite beneficial in improving engine efficiency and reducing structural loading from cylinder pressure. However, inter-cooling added substantially to the heat rejected to the engine coolant. One arrangement of these components provides the charge air cooler in front of the radiator. In another commercially available embodiment, the charge air cooler is disposed above the condenser and both are in front of the radiator. A significant cooling effect in highway trucks is due to the ram air resulting from high-speed travel. The front heat exchanger would provide better cooling to its internal coolant than the rear heat exchanger due to the closer proximity to the intake grille. The front heat exchanger would essentially starve cooling capacity from the rearward heat exchanger, which receives outside air indirectly through the front heat exchanger. One solution to the prior art involved placement of the radiator and the CAC in parallel, with one above the other as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,736,727. This while an effective design increases the size of the overall vertical grille area required on the front of the vehicle. On medium and heavy duty trucks where front visibility is especially important due to the height of the operator cab, the increased grille area decreases the visibility of vehicles directly in front of the vehicle. The driver potentially might not see a short person or child standing directly in front of the vehicle. Without raising the operator cab location, the driver would be able to see less the larger the vertical grille area. Additionally, the popular aerodynamic sleek hood design that drops off at the nose of the vehicle would be hard to design in with larger grille areas. What is needed is a radiator and charge air cooler (CAC) package for a mobile vehicle that provides for improved cooling without one heat exchanger completely starving the other of outside fresh air without increasing front vertical grille area and hence not decreasing driver frontal visibility.
An object of the invention is hence to provide a radiator and charge air cooler (CAC) package for a mobile vehicle that provides for improved cooling without one heat exchanger completely starving the other of outside fresh air without increasing front vertical grille area and hence not decreasing driver frontal visibility.
The radiator and charge-air-cooling package of this invention and a mobile vehicle with the package installed each satisfy the object of the invention and others not mentioned. The radiator and charge-air-cooling package is comprised generally of two air cooled heat exchangers: a radiator and a charge-air-cooler, the heat exchangers being attached to one another directly or indirectly and then attachable to a chassis or body of the vehicle. The two heat exchangers are both longer than wide with each having center cooling areas. In other words the two heat exchangers are generally rectangular in shape. Each heat exchanger has cooling cores in which their coolant flows. Air passes across these cooling cores when the vehicle moves to cool the coolant. The long sides of each of the heat exchangers are 90 degrees geometrically out of synch with the other. With the center cooling areas of each of the heat exchangers overlapping each other, at least one end of each heat exchanger may be unfettered by air flow the other heat exchanger. In the preferred embodiment, the center cooling areas of each heat exchanger overlap with both ends of each heat exchanger receiving fresh air flow directly from the intake grille. This preferred embodiment may be described as a xe2x80x98cross packaging or xe2x80x98T style packagingxe2x80x99. This preferred embodiment of the invention is shown in the attached figures. Analysis has shown that when the air cooled heat exchangers are presented with air flow, the greatest temperature drop or cooling effect is in the end regions, with the center cooling areas being relatively flat as far as temperature drop of the coolant. This invention provides for the end regions of the heat exchangers, where the greatest cooling is found, to be those exposed to the fresh outside air directly. Conversely, the center cooling areas, where the least cooling or temperature drop occurs, are the areas where only the front heat exchanger receives fresh outside air directly is where the overlap of the heat exchangers occur. The result is maximum efficiency for a reduced frontal horizontal surface area. The arrangement may be made with either the radiator or CAC being the front heat exchanger with other being the rear depending on heat load needs.
One method to achieve this design is to use existing radiator and CAC heat exchangers that are each generally rectangular in shape with cooling coils running the longer direction. One of the heat exchangers is reconfigured and turned 90 degrees. The turned heat exchanger is engaged to the second heat exchanger with the center cooling areas overlapping to form the cooling package of this invention. The result is that one heat exchanger has up or down flow through the coils and the other has cross flow from one side of the vehicle to the other when installed.
The cooling package of this invention may be engaged in the vehicle in any location although the embodiment shown is engaged to frame rails of the vehicle chassis.